SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 To say the Atlanta Braves are ready to leave the West Coast is an understatement.<\/p>\n
After Sunday\u2019s 3-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Braves ended their two-city California road trip with a 1-5 record. Atlanta\u2019s double-digit National League East lead it had a month ago has been cut to three, following the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 5-4 win over the New York Mets.<\/p>\n
The Braves dropped their second straight series \u2014 including a three-game sweep to the San Diego Padres \u2014 and have lost 12 of their last 15 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what the lead is,\u201d Braves manager Walt Weiss said. \u201cI could care less. We had a big lead early. There (are) several months to go. I\u2019m not worried about anybody else but ourselves right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offense was the team\u2019s forte during the stretch where it had the best record in baseball. Heading into Sunday, the Braves\u2019 19 home runs in June were tied for the fewest in the majors. The club\u2019s .601 OPS is the worst in baseball, and -0.5 fWAR is also a league worst for the month.<\/p>\n
In May, the Braves ranked in the top 10 of each of those categories.<\/p>\n
But the struggles also extend to the mound. Through May, the starting pitching staff similarly was among the best in key categories, including ERA (3.57), innings pitched (151 1\/3) and strikeouts (164). In June, those are all in the bottom 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s part of the game, and I know fans aren\u2019t probably the biggest fans of hearing that,\u201d starter Chris Sale said. \u201cBut we do have to kind of get things going and find a way to get over that, (and) not get complacent with what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. is still a ways from returning from his second stint on injured list with a strained left hamstring, Drake Baldwin is 2-for-43 since being activated from a right oblique injury, with his last 33 at-bats failing to result in a hit, the longest such streak in MLB.\u00a0Robert Suarez, who has the lowest ERA by a reliever, being placed on the injured list Friday with right forearm tightness doesn\u2019t help things, either.<\/p>\n
That both Austin Riley and Ha-Seong Kim are having the worst season of their careers is also something that Atlanta must contend with. Kim, like Baldwin, is currently in the midst of a hitless streak; his 27 consecutive at-bats without a hit is second to Baldwin in all of baseball.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s what comes with a 162-game season. However, according to multiple players, there isn\u2019t a sense of panic in the clubhouse with how many games remain in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s baseball, man,\u201d Mauricio Dub\u00f3n said. \u201cWe had a s\u2014 month, we had things that didn\u2019t go our way. I think it\u2019s good that it\u2019s happening right now, and not late in September. It\u2019s just a matter of just coming out here and flushing this month.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 To say the Atlanta Braves are ready to leave the West Coast is an understatement.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5221,7,9,8],"class_list":["post-379054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}